Uber is cutting 10% of its customer service team to streamline operations and accelerate the adoption of AI technology. The news was first reported by Bloomberg on Wednesday, July 22, 2026.

In addition to cutting members of the community operations team, the company also asked remote employees on that team to relocate to Uber's office hubs.

An Uber spokesperson told Bloomberg that the cuts are part of efforts to "streamline operations, strengthen in-person collaboration, and continue embracing AI."

Uber joins a growing list of companies that are cutting customer service staff and investing in AI. Salesforce, Verizon, and Oracle have all reduced customer service team members over the past year while shifting toward broader AI use.

Forrester predicts that AI will halve the customer service workforce by 2030. The analytics firm expects contact centers handling low-complexity customer inquiries to see the largest staff reductions, as AI can handle these queries well.

But in many cases, companies are not reducing staff because AI is hugely successful, but rather trying to free up funds to invest in the technology. In other cases, businesses are using AI as a justification while adjusting their business scale.

"This is part of a broader pattern," said Gartner VP analyst Kathy Ross in an email. "We often see layoffs reported as AI-driven, but the reality is more complex."

Forrester VP and Principal Analyst Kate Leggett said companies are using AI as an excuse for mass layoffs.

"Companies use AI to reduce staff—maybe they over-hired during the pandemic; maybe they need to shift spending from people to infrastructure," Leggett said in an email to CX Dive.

Megha Yethadka, Uber's VP of Global Community Operations, said in a memo reported by Bloomberg that the company needs to simplify its organization to better leverage AI. "We cannot scale frontier technology on top of fragmented processes."

Ross noted that such rhetoric indicates the layoffs are not entirely about AI's success. "It's important to decouple Uber's layoffs from current AI success: this looks more like a business restructuring decision to prepare for future AI success," Ross said. "Uber is not the only company that needs to prepare."

CX Dive reached out to Uber for comment but did not receive a response before publication.

How the layoffs will affect Uber's customer service quality remains to be seen.

On customer review site Trustpilot, Uber's customer service is often cited as a source of frustration.

While Leggett is not familiar with the specifics of Uber's customer service organization, she understands what is required to implement AI. "I know that fragmented processes and data need to be simplified before leveraging AI's advantages," she said. "Every AI project I've touched starts with cleaning up technical debt, knowledge, data, and process rework."

Leggett said many companies fail to implement AI successfully. They either cannot manage organizational change or do not have clean, accessible data to build AI on.

These companies may end up rehiring the customer service representatives they cut, Leggett said. "The classic example is Klarna."

Klarna cut customer service representatives, claiming its AI chatbot could do the work of 700 employees—but rehired customer service reps a year later. The buy now, pay later company started hiring an "Uber-type" customer service team last year but still claims its AI chatbot is successful.